The invention relates to a valve assembly for a tire pressure management system. More particularly, the invention relates to a wheel valve assembly for a tire pressure management system.
Tire pressure management systems such as, for example, central tire inflation systems can be utilized to manually and/or automatically inflate the pressure within a tire to a desired level. Tire pressure management systems such as central tire inflation systems are well known.
Typically, a tire pressure management system utilizes a wheel valve affixed to each wheel for effecting tire pressure adjustments. Due changes in terrain and/or load, it may be desirable to decrease the tire pressure. Also, it may be desirable to decrease tire pressure when a tire becomes overinflated do to a drop in the atmospheric pressure and/or a temperature increase caused by a change in the environmental or operating conditions. Wheel valves known in the art can be utilized to decrease tire pressure. However, the wheel valves known in the art do decrease tire pressure slowly which may not be desirable for certain applications. Also, the wheel valves known in the art are complex and expensive to manufacture.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a valve assembly which can decrease the tire pressure in a more robust manner.